Teams can lock down players for up to 4 season by granting players multi-season contracts. Contracts can only be granted to players the team currently manages. If you are bidding on a player you're interested in extending a contract to, you must first obtain the player. You will then be able to grant a contract upon receiving the player the following season.

How to grant a contract

A contract can be granted from the Franchise Management interface, under Contracts. For each player under the "next season" tab, you will see a "Grant" link. Clicking this will open up the dialog for setting up your contract. Here you select the number of seasons you wish lock a player down for. Contracts can only be written for 2 to 4 seasons. Note that a team can only grant a given player one contract in their career as well, this is to prevent teams from re-contracting players indefinitely.

Contract value & salary parameters

Currently you can extend the duration of your contract for 2, 3 or 4 seasons. The per-season salary is based off the players minimum bid value (The current minimum amount needed to place a bid on the player). Upon granting the contract, the current season is included in the contract, but no funds are deducted until the following season. This is because the player is currently under a salary value that was determined last season. Below is the scaling factor for each duration, displaying the per-season factor, as well as the current season's salary :

To grant a contract, you just need to have enough funds to cover one year of the contract (the min bid x factor value). You will not be deducted any funds for the contract until the following season, just as your other regular single-season contracts operate. Note that upon contract execution, all active bids for that player will be removed, and funds will be returned to those teams. They will be alerted of the contract signing as well.

Breaking a contract

Contracts cannot be broken themselves, but teams have the option of passing the contract to other teams by trading or releasing them at any time. A contract icon will appear next to the players name within the trading interface dialog to notify if a player is tied to a contract. In consideration of a deal, or acquiring a new player, the recipient team can check the player card page for this icon as well, to see if they are tied to a contract they might have to cover.

Available contract grants

You must have enough allocatable contract grants to create a new contract. Expansion teams (free accounts) are allocated one contract grant per season. Upgrading to Basic Membership will give you 3 grants, Premium members receive unlimited. You might consider upgrading your account if you decide locking down key players is important to your strategy.